Is there a 'bigfoot' in Bee County?

BEE COUNTY, TEXAS - This story may test your belief system, but for decades people all over the world have reported sightings of a mythical ape-like creature known as Sasquatch, or Bigfoot -- and one group in Beeville is working to try and prove it actually exists.

Baldemar Galvan is one of the people trying to prove the sightings are real. 3News met up with him as he was calling for Bigfoot to show itself in Normanna, just north of Beeville.

"Sometimes they're close by," Galvan said. "You can hear them knocking or shaking the tree or something, but they'll let you know they're close by."

Galvan runs the Bee County Bigfoot Research Group. He said the area along Medio Creek is a favorite hangout for the creature.

"When I saw it, it looked like a person," Galvan said. "A man with two legs."

Galvan and other Bigfoot believers gathered at the historic McClanahan House in Beeville to speak with 3News in hopes that others would step forward with their own stories of the beast.

Richard Rabe, a local real estate agent, showed 3News a picture he took of what he feels was a structure built by one of the creatures.

"Your blood runs cold," Rabe said.

One of the first supposed Bigfoot sighting in the county happened in Normanna back in 1925 when the creature surprised some cowboys inside a ranch house.

"He actually stuck his whole head in the window and the gentleman said his head was this big, and his eyes were so big, and said the animal made a just 'ugh' sound there and the animal just took off," Galvan said.

Felix Abrigo remembered the day he was working on a ranch and spotted the thing.

"The one I saw had to have been nine-foot tall and his hands were below his knees," Abrigo said. "He was just taking big old steps like he was out for a leisure walk."

That encounter seemed to have made a real impression.

"I'll tell you what, I don't go in the brush by myself anymore, and if I do I take a big gun," Abrigo said.

The group believes that so many sightings take place in the Normanna area because of the numerous creeks covered with thick brush.

Back in March just outside of Normanna, a ranch hand was working when his dogs began to bark and then they took off running toward something. When he took a look, it was simply too hard to believe.

"I saw this thing. Looked like this big old black shadow that seemed to be walking across the street," ranch hand Edward Robinson said.

Robinson got into his truck and raced to get a closer look, but it was gone by the time he got there.

"I wish somebody would find a good picture or a family, a group of them, you know what I'm saying," Robinson said. "There can't be just one in all of this area just traveling around doing stuff. There has to be more than one."

While mainstream scientists say a creature like this does not exist, Galvan and his research group will continue looking for the evidence in Normanna that Bigfoot is more than a legend.